


baby, please come home

by only_more_love



Series: Remix Fics [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Introspection, M/M, Melancholy, Mutual Pining, POV Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Remix, Singing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:28:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22890253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/only_more_love/pseuds/only_more_love
Summary: When he closes his eyes, Tony flashes across his mind's canvas, sketched in bold lines and dynamic color.Months after Siberia, Tony reaches out to Steve in an unexpected way.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Remix Fics [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1648132
Comments: 16
Kudos: 103
Collections: 2020 Captain America/Iron Man Remix Madness





	baby, please come home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [XtaticPearl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/XtaticPearl/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Sunshine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12629430) by [XtaticPearl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/XtaticPearl/pseuds/XtaticPearl). 
  * In response to a prompt by [XtaticPearl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/XtaticPearl/pseuds/XtaticPearl) in the [2020_Cap_Ironman_Remix_Madness](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/2020_Cap_Ironman_Remix_Madness) collection. 



> So this was supposed to be longer and go in a very different direction, but alas, life happened. Regardless, hope you enjoy.
> 
> Thank you very much to Mairi, profoundfangirl, and ramblesrantsmusings for cheer reading after I posted. <3<3<3

It’s nothing special—just another tired day that blended into a tired night. 

By this point, he's lived through so many of them that they've melted into an endless smear.

And Steve, too, is just plain tired. Life on the run means not enough food to match the metabolism the serum gave him. He deals with the relentless hunger because he has to—what other choice does he have?—but it gnaws at him constantly and never abates.

They're running an op in Colombia—he, Natasha, Sam, and Wanda are—trying to take down a human trafficking ring that thrives on the influx of Venezuelan refugees. What they’re doing matters, Steve tells himself; repeats it like a silent mantra in his mind. While that may be true, it still doesn’t help him sleep at night.  
  
When he closes his eyes, Tony flashes across his mind's canvas, sketched in bold lines and dynamic color.

Tony laughing until his laughter morphed into an undignified snort, with his head thrown back and his eyes crinkled at the corners with lines radiating outward like miniature sunbursts.

Tony in the morning, propped against the communal kitchen island, slumped over his first (second, third, fourth) mug of coffee, breathing deeply while the bitter-scented steam swirled up toward his face.

Tony's dark hair stuck up in haphazard spikes that made Steve's fingers tingle with the need to touch.

Tony, sleep-mussed, morning-soft, and non-verbal, wiggling his bare toes against the cold kitchen tile and accepting a plate of crispy bacon and scrambled eggs from Steve with a grunt, a lazy blink, and a crooked half-smile that Steve learned, slowly, to return to him in the shape of a full smile.

Tony with noon sunlight picking out the auburn in his hair and the sparks of hazel in his pretty, long-lashed eyes while he grinned and snatched a handful of fries off Steve's lunch plate. 

Tony with pain—fuck, so much pain—and betrayal etched into the lines, curves, and angles of his face when Steve only ever wanted to see him smile; to be the reason for that smile.

While the man himself isn't physically there, Steve never walks a step without Tony at his side.

Everything Tony. 

Every _where_ Tony.

Fatigue shadows Steve, a permanent fixture that's as much a part of him as his bones. He accepts it as a fair consequence of both his actions and his inaction. It's a person's (sacred) duty to heft the weight of their choices and carry them on their back and shoulders. He wouldn't set down that burden even if he could.

But it's still difficult, sometimes, even though he'd never admit it to anyone. The serum is no help there.

Tonight, he lies on his back in a narrow bed that sags in the middle and creaks every time he shifts, one arm folded and tucked beneath his head. The street drifts in through the open window, glued together in a mixed-media assemblage: the bleating of a car horn, the ring-ring of a bicycle bell, the pomp and swagger of a passing motorcycle. Even the scents of unfamiliar spices and cooking meat wander in and make themselves at home in Steve's temporary room, causing his stomach to give a plaintive rumble that Steve notices but quickly goes back to ignoring.

A ceiling fan rattles overhead, clearly unbalanced, stirring the sluggish, soupy air. It does nothing to dry the sweat on Steve’s bare chest and bring on blissful coolness.

Tony would be able to fix the fan in less than ten minutes, probably, if he was there. Steve pictures him wearing worn jeans, frayed at the ends, and a black tank, holding a screwdriver between his teeth, his depthless eyes gleaming that gleam they always got when Tony was busy solving a problem. 

But Tony isn’t there. He isn’t there because they had a fight, the kind of fight that ended with Captain America’s shield embedded in Iron Man’s chest like it belonged there, and Steve walking away and leaving pieces of himself scattered in a frozen Siberian bunker.

_Did you know?_

Did Steve know, when Tony looked up from the grainy footage showing on that monitor and turned his focus to Steve, how the absolute and unmistakeable despair wound through his familiar gaze would spear through Steve's gut and leave him coughing up blood?

Did he know how it would feel watching them trade blows, his brother and his—

Did he know how the bile sweeping up his throat would taste when he swung his fist and his shield at Tony, breath crashing through his lungs and punching through his lips in a panicked rush that he couldn't control? Oh, God, it all happened with such speed, and Steve couldn't control any of it; just struggled wildly to keep up.

Did he know how it would feel to see blood smear at Tony's temples and slide into his lovely hair; to watch it trickle from his nose, stark scarlet against his pale face, and know that he put it there, his body weaponized against Tony instead of used as an instrument of tenderness and reverence?

These are things Steve dearly wishes he didn't know, but he does, and nothing can revoke that knowledge. Pandora's box opened—and could not be closed again.  
  
If he could rewind his life, remake his choices...But he can't, and wishing won't change reality.

Breathing slowly, Steve stares at the fan, trying to focus on a single blade and follow it around and around through its listless revolutions. His phone, which keeps vigil next to him on the bed, chirps, an errant, unexpected sound that breaks through the myriad other noises and thoughts that crowd around Steve in the partial darkness. Which of these things does not belong? he thinks with a sardonic twist of his lips that’s nonetheless the closest thing to a smile that he’s worn in...months.

Has it been that long? It has, he realizes, as he moves his fingers over his phone and opens up a text that consists of nothing but an audio file. With his heartbeat thudding in his ears, Steve lets his thumb hover over the triangle that will play the file. Eyes closed, he brings down his thumb and presses it to the screen. He clutches the phone to his ear; whatever it is, he doesn’t want any of the others to hear it.

Only one person has this number.

A piano plays a slow and mournful melody cloaked in simple chords that twine 'round Steve's throat and squeeze until he almost chokes. The voice layered over the somber notes reaches across the miles and shatters the ice that Steve’s wrapped himself in so that he can keep going when he just doesn’t want to anymore. He knows that voice; would know it anywhere: over oceans, across continents, in a hundred lifetimes, even though Steve's never heard it lifted in song.

Tony.

“In all my dreams, dear, you seem to leave me,” he sings in the recording, and Steve didn't know there was anything left in him that could break, but oh, he was wrong, as he was about so many things. “When I awake, my poor heart pains." By all rights, the antiquated phrasing should jar; should clash with Tony, who's always been a futurist in Steve's eyes. It doesn't, though. The lyrics sound real and right, and they take root inside Steve, in the same invisible spaces where Tony and his warmth linger. "So when you come back and make me happy, I'll forgive, dear. I'll take all the blame.”

Steve mouths the words along with Tony in an odd form of intimacy: “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray. You'll never know, dear, how much I love you.”

Tony’s voice cracks on the "don't," in “Please don’t take my sunshine—”

Steve would give anything to touch him, to simply curl his hand over Tony's shoulder and allow it to rest on it for as long as it takes the earth to make a full turn around the sun.

The recording ends there, abruptly. Steve lays the phone over his heart for a few minutes, then picks it up with fingers that don't quite work right, and raises it to his ear once again, wanting to immolate himself in the whiskey-scratch-burn of Tony's voice.

This time, when the clip ends, Steve’s ready for it.

“—away.” He fills in the last word for Tony.

Though Steve didn't realize it when he and Tony first met, he knows it now and has known it for a long time: Tony is the braver person.   
  
Maybe Steve can borrow some of that bravery for himself. 

Steve crosses his fingers for luck because he needs every drop of that he can get, then presses the sole number that's entered in this particular phone. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Kudos and comments make me smile, so if you've got time to share your thoughts and reactions with me, please do. Short, long, hearts, or smiles, I'll gladly take 'em all. Should you wish to reblog it, the tumblr post for this fic is [here](https://onlymorelove.tumblr.com/post/611431212505071616/a-remix-of-suitofhumours-warm-happy-fic). You can find me at [onlymorelove.tumblr.com](http://onlymorelove.tumblr.com). Come talk to me if you like. I do not bite. :) Sometimes you can also find me on Discord.
> 
> In case you're curious, [this version of You Are My Sunshine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6le2GJRdtS8) is what I had in mind here. Well, a version in which the singer is a man, but with this kind of piano accompaniment. :) Not Johnny Cash, though. His voice has a much more gravelly quality than RDJ's does. If you'd like to hear RDJ sing, check out [this link](https://youtu.be/buVevbf-GJQ). Should you need one more version of the song to rip out your heart, here's [one more.](https://youtu.be/2cBzMSPYKas) Lastly, [this](https://www.bluegrasslyrics.com/song/you-are-my-sunshine/) is the version of the lyrics used in this story. 
> 
> That's it for links, friends. ;) But if you want to link me to a version you love, drop me a note below.


End file.
